bros i fucking bought a house

I just about finished my neon cat. It needs a few more layers of paint in a few places, but I am really happy with the way it looks. I stuck to the paint by numbers because it was fun and lovely -- well, stuck to it except for the eyes.

I think the eyes look pretty good. Or at least no worse than they would've without me messing around.

I'm trying to work on some kind of OC/ARTPOST, which will likely become an Etsy/biz?niz?owner?? post in disguise.

Temporary tattoos are strangely popular items on Etsy, or at least in my Etsy shop. I like to make temporary tattoos of tattoos I've considered getting in life.

I haven't listed this one yet, but the art 'gram reacted way more than I expected, so now I think I might have to. It's rather fun, at least, innit? It blurred a little when I put it on. That's user error though...well, mostly. (I suspect the best maximum size for temporary tattoos is not large.)

I drew the dude, but not anything else.

Busy day at work today. That's okay. We are re-integrating a business unit that used to be part of ours several years ago, was split out and now is back again. They are having a bumpy ride realizing that "just because it used to be a certain way, does not mean that way is right, good, or how we'd like to do it in this LOB." I expect many more bumps along this road over, probably, the next 6 months.

I think we all know that beer makes men(and women, and people) dehydrated. Am I alone in experiencing this, or does corona take it one step further -- and make men (and women, and people) EXTRAORDINARILY THIRSTY? Wait, don't judge me. I'm not hopelessly parched myself. This is a comment on the grade and hopelessness of men trying to hit on me.

I got a new computer today (NOT a laptop and oh my god the pleasure of a big screen!!!) and a new-to-me TV over the weekend (50”, like I’m over here in big vision land now I swear) and I’m just like. Super enjoying these.

There is more to my life than material pleasure but I just got the computer today and I haven’t used a 20” screen in years, allow me to wallow in the pleasure

So, dating.

I had one first date this past Sunday and I have 4 more lined up for this Thursday-Sunday. No double booking people -- at least not of yet. I'm approaching dating rather seriously this go round. The goal: find someone who I get along with and share a lot in common with, who I want to hang out with a lot!

It's interesting, this approach, because I've never quite tried something like this before. I'm using Hinge, thanks to the advice of several people, and it's going much, MUCH better than the playing field on OKCupid, so thank you for your recommendations. I've actually stepped a bit too far into the swimming pool as I have surplus of gentlemen who would like to meet. However, I'm absolutely refining and updating my selections for this weekend as various users seem less likely to pan out. I'm learning a great deal about some basic attributes I'm looking for in someone. For instance:

- i prefer someone who has experience in some kind of office environment mainly because if you don't you have no idea what the fuck i do and it's really hard to explain it; at least if you work in an office environment, i might be able to begin to explain it effectively

- also having a similar job = similar schedules, which is a big thing. i was awakened to the reality of this one when a bartender messaged me at 3 am hoping i kept "bartender hours." no, buddy, i'm sorry, but i almost never will message you back at 3 am. and i like to wake up at 7. most bar shifts start around the time i get off work you know?

- it's interesting how the pandemic has really diversified people's experiences of the past 18 months, and to be honest i'm going to have more in common with people who had similar experiences than i did. i have most in common with other people who went to full time work from home.

- obviously, i need someone with similar tattoo appreciation as I have, which i realized today when i messaged my thursday night date about tattoos and he had a decidedly lukewarm response!! something i didn't even THINK about until it happened!

- at this point, at this age, a guy with a kid or an ex wife is actually more interesting as a potential option than someone who's made it to 30 and no one has been willing to commit to yet

it's a game of quality AND quantity. there are a lot of great guys out there but once you start sorting out all the "obviously incompatible lifestyle" folks out the playing field dwindles. I am MOST excited for my date on Saturday. This person really has almost everything I am interested in...

....but now i realized i have to check about tattoos :)

M O V I N G

Today is box city day, where I take all the boxes and I make them into a city.

Tomorrow is moving truck day, where we take all the boxes and we put them in a truck.

Friday is VA day, where we take the truck and we drive it down south. Then we take the boxes out and we are back to box city day.

Next there will be CATURDAY, where we come back and I pack up the cats and I drive south again.

Thankfully we still have the lease until 9/30 so NO, I have not packed up 100% of my stuff. I feel like I've got a very solid 90% though. Things that are left are things like free weights, paintings on walls, spices, cutlery, some of the records. I'm planning to be back for Labor Day weekend to pack up a big carload.

IT'S MY LIFE AND IT'S EXCITING AND ONCE I MOVE TO RICHMOND I'M GETTING A BIKE AND I'M NOT GOING TO DRIVE ANYWHERE UNTIL THEY MAKE ME GO BACK TO WORK!!! (Maybe.)

I have a lot of plans for my brand new life. I am excited.

Last night I dreamed about someone whom I'd loved very much. And in my dream, he loved me back and in front of our friends.

Once I move to VA there is nothing stopping me: the Pursuit of Twue Wuv. Can't hide from it anymore...

Can you get to that?

We have entered Deathwatch 2020. I'm here in person, but we got mom to cancel the actual Thanksgiving -- the one where somehow, she, her mom's primary caretaker since the beginning of October, was also going to cook the same elaborate 3-day-in-the-making Thanksgiving fest she always does -- and host all her siblings and their significant others that were willing to come -- and, at least in the plans from 1-2 weeks ago, hoist our bed-bound grandmother into a wheelchair and wheel her out to the dining room to preside -- that is, sleep, or at least not be able to feed herself or recognize any of the attendees -- at the head of the table.

Glad that we got her to cancel that.

Things took a turn for the worse with Gram about a week ago. She hasn't eaten or taken in fluids since last Thursday really. I came up from VA earlier than planned so I could be here for my mom. As of yesterday my sister's been staying in the house too (to avoid some potential COVID complications that come along with careless roommates) and in a way it's kind of nice. It's as nice and as supportive as we can make it for my mom.

Gram could go today, or tomorrow. Dad's metaphorical money has been for Thursday this whole time. He's also got a pretty good history at accurately guessing what his wrapped Christmas/birthday presents are, so it would be a nice but not-immediately-mentionable feather in his prescience cap if he got this one right too. Maybe I should thank him for my generally-on-point gut predictions when same-day 15-minute "Team Update" meetings land on our calendars at work.

Mom is grieving, and this is very tough on her. Wish that made her any easier to deal with, but nope -- turns out you don't get any less bossy or controlling when you're taking care of someone you love who's dying by the minute and hasn't been conscious since Saturday or Sunday. Oh, how we can hate the things we do because of the people we love, and because or when those things are part of doing our best to love them in the way that feels best -- in the only way that felt right, reasonable, conscionable to us in the dimly lit maze of paths of adult life and "never been here before" and we had to make a decision in the moment before the path went ahead and passed us by, making the decision for us because life moves on even if we decide we are paralyzed and cannot move with doubt.

It is good to have this exposure and this experience. The death of each of your grandparents, after all, is both an inevitable and shared human experience. In this way, I can see this experience as making me less alone: I am being somewhere so many others have been before. This is something I will now have in common with many, and something that others in my life will experience in the future and having experienced it already may help me be close to them when it happens in their experiences.

Life is not all comfortable, bright, happy and kind. There is also value in being here, and in or for the discomfort that it brings. If I were not here for this I would be robbed of some of the depth and spectrum of human experience.

We must confront our realities head-on. No, it will not always be comfortable -- nor should it. No, we will not always like it -- nor should we expect that: we should not expect that every square of the quilt of our entire human life will be cut from the same cloth. That would make it worse than boring. It would make it not worth mentioning; it would make the whole thing forgettable, machine-replicable, and in a way -- because it would be facile to reproduce, because it would be uniform and no piece would have any difference -- it would make such a life lose much value.

Existence that is the same all the time is called stasis. Can stasis be considered any real existence at all?

When I was 19 I looked a metaphorical shotgun down the barrel and I decided that I was the kind of person who, when I realized there were hard things happening ahead, would confront them and deal with them. Regardless of whether I did or didn't want to and regardless of how it made me feel while I dealt with them.

I would rather look the monster in the face and see it coming, watch it as it moves, and learn to recognize what it looks like -- than hide beneath the covers, hope this would make it disappear, and never know what it was doing or where it was headed or whether it was coming for me at all.

That doesn't mean I enjoy the looking. But I am here to grit my teeth, and do it.

Update: Deathwatch 2020 is now over. It’s a mercy. RIP

Sleepy joe the sleeper hit.

Don’t mind me, I’ve been trying to find some kind of metaphor to fit in with the sleepy moniker for like a week now, and the next best thing I got is “sleepy joe the sniper.” Not quite as good, I’m afraid

it can only do so much. the desire of the site has skewed notably towards link posts. discussion (#askhubski) and OC-sharing posts used to be extremely common. this used to feel like a place where people were asked and invited to share of themselves.

now it's a somewhat lofty but no better than well-sifted reddit link aggregator, minus a few recurring threads that help bring it together (pubskis, music threads, etc)

this is really not a place where people feel comfortable opening the floor with sharing themselves or their content anymore and that used to be very, very common.

I don’t know the last time I Pubski’d. I think I told y’all I’ve been picking up running (my four month runnaversary is on the 10th! Stable relationships ftw, woot! I’ll take my running shoes out for a pasta dinner maybe, 😂) as of late, and that I’d signed up for a 10k in April and was on a training plan and my goal was to run it in 1 hour or less.

Well. I’ll set the scene. It was New Year’s Eve, I’d had some wine, and I was feeling nice and relaxed. I was taking a break from running for the holidays (as in, I didn’t run 12/31 or 1/1). I checked my email. Lo and behold! One of the running sites has my email and sent me something.

“Time for New Years Resolutions runs!” uh-oh, I thought. An effective clickbait subject line. They must know me.

I click in to the email.

“Save 20% with code 2020!” they said. “10k races!” they said. “Jan 5: 3rd annual memorial race for a local high school senior! $24 with discount!”

I swear the bottle of wine nearby gained sentience and took over. I couldn’t remember typing in my info or my credit card details, suddenly I was on a race confirmation page. I was running a surprise 10k in 5 days! Holy shit!

Well, guys, I ran it. I had a fantastic time(as in, at the event). My actual time wasn’t bad either: 57:09. Damn. I already beat my April goal.

Looks like I need a new goal for the April 10k! I’m so glad I did the run last weekend. It went to a good cause and I ran faster than I thought I could! (This is a side effect, partially, of being directly AT the starting line when the gun went off — for some reason everyone was being shy about being right at the front. I ran my first mile in 8:59 as I was surrounded by all these faster people passing me. :D)

According to r/running a lot of people seem to pick up running and jump into marathons right away. I do want to do a marathon and am confident in my ability to complete one, when I get there. However, I really like what I’m currently doing; I ran 2 5ks in fall 2019; looks like I’ll run 2 10ks in early 2020; I have plans for my first half marathon in the mid to late fall. I like this accidental concept of running two of each kind of race before progressing onward.

Anyway, it’s clearly my newest addiction — but it makes me feel great, and it gives me a good challenge that gets me out of the house. I was considering posting a race report here after the 10k, but figured I’d wait for Pubski. I don’t know how many runners we have in our ranks - a few, at least, I know.

Anyway. It just feels good to share. More than anything, I just want to make sure I stick with it this time. My approach and my feelings about running this go-round have been really different in a positive way compared to basically every other time I’ve laced up my shoes and decided to make a go of it, so I’m optimistic. More than optimistic, however, I’m at the point where I really embrace the fact that the only way to be sure that running is going to stick with me is by doing it. Every day. And the big picture will take care of itself.

Happy Wednesday, hubski! I hope whatever your current endeavor or obsession is, that it is treating you just as well.

Well THIS BITCH ran eleventy-eleven point eleventy-eleven miles today, which is pretty dang cool. That is a personal distance PR/PB for me.

I signed up for another 5k. At this point I'm ready to call a 5k a fun run. What I like about the local 5ks that I'm signing up for is that nearly all of them have the money go to benefit some cause or something. So I'm having fun running "competitively," at least getting experience with racing, and my dollars are going to causes I like to support in my local community! This new 5k will be in May (after my upcoming 10k) and it supports my local SPCA. Guess what they're calling it.

Go on, guess.

Ahahaha. OK, you guys give up? They're calling it...the fast and the furriest 5k.

Seriously guys, how could a gal say no to that??

Also, here are some stamps I've been carving.

I've been doing a lot of research into printing, as in carved-print-printing, and it's pretty cool. But also a little too serious. I like my stamps. I think I'm going to continue artistically experimenting with a healthy mixture of both approaches.

Now excuse me, while I go eat a pizza.

We should totally reboot grubski. I've been cooking my ass off. We celebrated taco tuesday yesterday.

A while ago I made pizza and would've posted a #breadwatch, except I ate most of the better-looking one (the first) before I thought of it.

I’m reading a very good book called “Trick Mirror” by Jia Tolentino. It’s a collection of essays that essentially swirl around both internet culture and feminism. It’s very smart. I wanted to recommend it to the hub.

Packing for my big move has begun. I’ve warned my closest circle that I anticipate panic to kick in around Aug 1 — that will be two weeks out from the move date.

My sister appears to finally have found a roommate to replace me in the apartment — her third try. The flakiness of my sister’s friends is a fact. My brother asked me on the phone today if I think either the new roomie or my sister will clean the place. Scoffing, I said no.

I started running again this week. I am easing back into it. I’ve been waking up at 5 am to get outside before the heat gets too awful. It is an extremely valuable endeavor for my well being and my soul.

My resting heart rate is trending high and has all year. I suspect my blood pressure too. I hope I can bring it down/manage it through exercise and good eating. There’s a family history though.

All any of us can do is our best. I have hope for all if you, hubski. Be safe. Be well.

You know what's going to change?

F'n dating.

i'm disputing a fraudulent transaction with Chase, they have already incorrectly denied it once, i got mad tonight and i escalated with the CFPB because FUCK YOU, this bih DIDN'T receive any $757 order from vistaprint nor did she make one

Y'all, if shit ever goes wonky with your bank, a) dispute dispute dispute, b) escalate to your regulator, c) loop this bih in and I'll fight for you. This is literally the kind of shit that I spend years validating was performed correctly for my own bank, and what Chase is doing is exactly what I would've flagged in a deep dive as (as the kids call it) "inappropro" behavior.

i m mad

that's all just wanted to vent thanks for listening

Bitch they’re gonna fly me to TX for the next round of interviewsssss

I applied for a job.

I will keep you posted.

I would like to get it!

Y’know, I always really liked Lord of the Rings.

I’m talking about like taught-myself-elvish, the-poem-I-recited-because-of-a-mandatory-English-requirement-in-eighth-grade-was-TheLayOfLethian, my first TWO email addresses were elvish references, my first online internet friend was from Lotr role playing forums, that’s how much I liked LOTR, liked LOTR sorta person.

Everyone here so far as I can see is kind of focusing on books that changed who they were on some fundamentalist, Ayn Rand sort of libertarian level.

Nah I ain’t got that. I haven’t read a book that singlehandedly shaped me politically or changed how I related to my peers. On that note, Holden Caulfield is kind of a piece of shit.

But was I gifted Sméagol/Gollum posters almost every secret Santa we had in high school? And could I write in Dwarven characters if I was pressed?

You bet your god damn ass on both counts I can, and for that, and the Lay of Luthien which I can still at least begin to recite —

the leaves were long, the grass was green

The hemlock umbels tall and fair

And in the glade a light was seen

Tinuviel was dancing there

The light of stars was in her hair

And in her raiment, shimmering...

Aye, yeah, those books changed my life. And my early internet friendships, through LOTR role playing forums, brought me here. I wouldn’t be half so accepting (and loving) of your took-fools if it weren’t for that. Ay, me. Memory lane, and it smells all of Kings-foil.

A decade's a nice unit. Big one. I also have to say it's nice to have my birthday right before the EOY, it gives me nice round numbers to work with.

10 years ago I was 20 and midway through my last year of college. I was majoring in English literature I did have a job, telemarketing, although I was soon to lose it -- it was a small, 3rd party telemarketing 'firm' I guess and it shut down. I had two tattoos. I had a lot of friends and did a lot of partying. I was on very bad terms with my parents. I LARPed. I smoked cigarettes (Marlboro Smooths, at the time). I experimented with LSD and shrooms that winter. I had lazy eye wink many lovahhhs. 10 years ago this New Year's would be the New Year's I agreed to go with my on-and-off-boyfriend to Philadelphia (or maybe it was even New York -- who knew, it was never going to happen) and instead I ghosted on him two days before NYE and went to Philadelphia with a guy I'd met off OKC like, three days earlier. Look -- I'm not saying that 10-years-ago-me was a lot of fun, but she certainly had a lot of fun, and that's all I can say about that. In April I would become engaged -- to someone else. Someone I met while LARPing.

Fastforward 10 years! Interesting things happen! I move a lot. Believe it or not, eventually, my life actually settles down. I get my first professional job at a bank and then skip around to a few more banks. I get two wonderful fat cats! 16 more tattoos! Many concert experiences later, I no longer LARP and don't frequently party. I have picked up running as a very recent end-of-the-decade addiction. I am both a much nicer person, and a much happier person, than I was 10 years ago. I am also a much more stable person.

What did this past decade teach me?

It taught me a lot about myself. I would say that at 20, I didn't know myself at all. I guess what I'm saying is that "knowing thyself" is also the value. You can't really move forward, in my opinion, if you don't know yourself and who you are.

Hello.

I am the Broganator.

My current location is homegrown. I describe myself as a homegrown girl.

I check hubski about once a week. Sometimes more frequently. It actually surprises me that nowaypablo had a point when he posted about screentime having an effect on phone usage.

I am inspired by continual improvement.

I have previously been preoccupied by being so preoccupied with mundane things it allowed me to not notice the big picture.

Now I am preoccupied with continual improvement I guess. But also very happy with myself. I think the key is to always be trying to get better but understand some days you need to fail as well.

Lol what the fuck do I know?

I guess I am also preoccupied with my next set of 5 year plans. I used to write down lists of 5 year plans in my early 20s. It turns out I am about to turn 30 (“about” means “in 9 months” means “truly I’m getting old to measure about so imprecisely”) and lo and behold. I had achieved all my 5 year goals. So for a goal driven person for a while I was in this unfortunate place of having had goals, and having achieved them...aka not having any more goals to help steer me anymore.

So I’ve been thinking up new goals! Good news; I seem to be coming to them. I believe in the power of writing 5 year goals down. Hey —- it worked the first time!!

Serious about that meet up —

Refugee

I went on a Bumble first date last night. The guy brought his gun. thank u, next.

I have another Bumble first date tonight, I'm more excited about this one.

I really just wanted to share because like, bringing a gun on a first date, not to mention telling your date about it, is pretty fucking NUTS right?

UNEXPECTED STORY SEQUELS

I was getting ready for work this morning, and I had all the way gotten dressed, accessorized, and even did my hair braided, in two french braids tied off at the nape of my neck, when by that point all the looking in the mirror which that entailed started getting to me. I started second-guessing my outfit (even despite my never-before-failed orderly-life strategy of picking out my work clothes every night beforehand). I started second-guessing how I looked. I started thinking about Instagram models and the bodies of the people I work with (typical Bank Ass office bodies, generally) and I started trying to think about female friends I have who are my age and how they looked, and how they looked compared to high school, and so on and so forth. I started to stare at the mirror and ask myself, "What do other people see when they look at me? What must I look like through the eyes of other people? Do I have a big ass? I don't think I do, but my last kind-of-boyfriend keeps vague-posting about me on facebook and one thing he shared was about how he's an ass man and the girl he likes has a huge one...I never thought I have a big ass, really, but do I?"

I go through this whole exercise in pissing away thought and time into mirrors in exchange for racheting higher and higher levels of crippling gross feelings often enough. Pretty often. Maybe a lot. Depends on the week.

So anyway I kept looking in the full body mirror in my room at myself and asking, “Is this how normal people think and feel and think and feel about their bodies?” Then I’d go to the bathroom for some other reason and find myself looking in the mirror there. I’d ask, “How do normal people feel about their bodies? Is the way I feel about my body normal? I don’t think so, I mean, what normal person does this in the morning, especially a morning when they took care and time to look a little more-than-average nice in ways that require a little more-than-average self-care and you’d think self-care meant doing so was good for one, wouldn’t it?”

And then I’d walk through the kitchen to put something in my work bag or whatever and I’d pass the full body mirror on the way and at some point between all my askings about normal people I realized something. Maybe I had a breakthrough. I think it might be one, anyway. It feels like that, in my mind, honestly it feels like a literal break in the pattern and color of the thoughts I'd been weaving just as I'm using to weaving them all the time, and yes it feels like maybe now I can see through them. And there's light coming through over there.

To explain what happened I need to talk about something else for a minute. I’m working on a 5-year plan. Early on, mid-January or earlier, while I was just starting the entire project and fleshing it out, I stopped at some point. I thought, you’re making all these plans for 1, 2, 5 years out, refugee, but why? And I stopped all my tasking and goal-orienting and sometimes-you-can-get-too-caught-up-on-projects-and-progress-and-miss-the-big-green-point-all-around you. I took a trusty notebook and I wrote down, What kind of person do you want to be?

I gave it care and thought and came up with eleven words in the next hour or so. I didn’t let myself just rush to write down popular good virtues or etc; I asked myself, what kind of person is it important, to me, for me to be? and i weighed what i came up with until I decided I agreed with it.

I didn’t tie any major life goals back to those words, not specifically, not concretely, only maybe if you stretch the meaning and squint your eyes a bit. So they didn't actually drive my goals or my 5 year plan in any visceral way. However, taking that inventory did really seem to help ground me as I went through making my goals and breaking them into smaller goals and basically wiring up my 5-year-plan process/binder. Mentally, I think it gave me the ground I needed to stand upon and solidly create my plan of attack for getting what I want out of life. I think doing that gave me the fortitude to see the 5 year plan through, and commit to it, and work at it. And keep working at it, day by day.

So this morning, looking into mirrors and agonizing and asking myself all these questions which hinged on this strange word, normal, this word which usually frankly I disdain -- I thought, hey hang on just one minute. Normal, normal, normal, why do you keep saying that? Why are you fixating there? Put aside the question of “Am I normal or not?” because frankly, that answer doesn’t matter to the true issue at hand. The true issue at hand is that I don't feel very comfortable with my body and haven't since I was 12— what the fuck is any normal person going to know or be able to tell me about how to change that? Scratch everything about this line of tearing-your-hair-out making-yourself-madder-not-saner-by-following-it line of questioning and KILL the underlying train of faux-logic that’s driving it.

Forget everybody else, and what everybody else does.

And I sat down, and I opened my trusty notebook, and I wrote, “What’s the kind of relationship I want with my body?”

You know what I think now? I think me and my body? I think we might be going somewhere. At last. I think, starting from here — what do I want with what I have — and seeing it as a relationship, as a “Let me take care of you and you take care of me,” sort of deal — I don’t know, in my notebook I titled it caps-lock BREAKTHROUGH. and then I gave it an underline.

OftenBen

______

Before that happened this morning I was going to share with Pubski an old poem I dug up this week, 2011 sort of old, which you know what? Has stood up to time and is, surprisingly, still intellectually decent. A little morsel. It has a tone I think mk will recognize and like. Remember when we talked about a little detachment? I think I feel it here.

_____

Happy hump day guys, on with the self-actualizing, good energy all around.

ref

I'm, like, in love!

OK, I'm not in love guys. Not just yet. Don't get too excited. BUT, I reconnected with an old (and, the more I remember, remarkably dear) high school friend about two weeks ago - we just ran into each other at the bar unexpectedly. The next morning, he was hitting me up on Facebook saying we should hang out sometime. And I had this fancy night with friends planned for that Friday so I figured, what the hey, take risks little rabbit, and I invited him out. We've hung out 3x since then. He has a kid (a little 6yo girl) and had custody for the last week, so that's limited our ability to hang out - quite reasonably and responsibly, of course.

Our next date is tomorrow...we are making chicken piccata at his apartment... We talk every day. A lot.

This kid gave me a lapdance while breathily singing "Happy birthday, Mr President" in my parents' basement on my 16th birthday party.

It's just like really interesting and... good. I don't have much else to say about it because I'm really excited, pretty into him, and there's no way anyone on earth would text me as much as he does unless they actually liked talking to me. So! I'll stop daydreaming about my wedding. (JK. I haven't really been daydreaming about the wedding. I'm too busy daydreaming about having sex.)

In the past year (perhaps even precisely; perhaps even a year to this day) I:

- unexpectedly broke up with my S/O (that's our kick-off event) (PS I checked. Exactly a year ago, tomorrow)

- moved out of their house (STAT)

- moved in with my parents for 5 months (thank you, mom and dad)

- found a wonderful little apartment in a great location where i now live with my sister

- lost 20 lbs (but gained around 7 back...hey, holidays! And life's a journey, right? Those 7 pounds are just giving me a new goal)

- didn't really date - like, kind of dated one or two people, but mostly consciously was trying to take the year off of it, after the Catastrophic Break-up

- took a lot of time to myself because I felt the need to recalibrate, ask myself what i really want, and reorient - realign my life to help me reach those goals more effectively

- revamped my whole financial management system (i have a bank account for each bill now, essentially - I recommend this btw)

- read like a million stephen king books

- kicked total ass at work (at least as much ass as i consistently could i guess)

- also i got 3 tattoos

- found balance and stability in/with my life and my self.

____

It's been a good year. I'm glad the break-up happened. I'm glad I saw it as an opportunity to prove to myself my worth and capability, and I think I did.

___

Who's on the East Coast? Meriadoc arguewithatree blackbootz

I think it would be fun if we could arrange another little meet-up, I know there are new hubskiers and I promise that I, like kleinbl00, am much more tolerable in person, so if anyone else is nearish to the DC/Baldymore area, give us a shout

Hi all.

I’m doing ok. My aunts funeral was yesterday. Funerals suck; it’s impossible not to cry, they’re like a solid cup of condensed sadness.

My work is very accommodating and I took today off too for bereavement. I maybe said I was spending it with my cousins but I really actually just spent it with myself (and, eventually, a six pack of yuengling).

In the life-carries-on category I have a first date on Friday with my first person I’m actually meeting off of match. Which I drunkenly agreed to pay over $100 for six months’ supply of about 5 months ago. Hey, at minimum I get to go see ant man and the wasp.

Death doesn’t absolve anyone of any flaws. But a person can be deeply flawed and still dear to you. I just want y’all to hear that because I got to hear, essentially, that biscuit-crux from another aunt the day I learned of my dead aunt’s death (correction: murder) and it helped a lot. In this case, it’s very very true.

I hope to get to bed early tonight. Back to work and deliverables tomorrow.

Luh u ‘ski

I've really had a bit of a kick-ass week so far when it comes to personal goals and whatnot. I don't mean to brag but one accomplishment honestly...I think is worth bragging about.

I haven't had a single cigarette since Sunday

I didn't breathe a single hint that I was quitting (note: again) until today. I think that instinct was right; to be honest, I'm proud of myself and think I should be and should share this accomplishment, but on the other hand I think as a result I'm thinking about cigarettes/smoking way more than I would have been. In other words today has been the most trying day out of the 3. I thought about picking up a pack at the drugstore earlier. I didn't.

I also haven't had a single drop of alcohol since Sunday (while the goals to "quit smoking" and "drink less" are separate, I've done both enough to realize that quitting smoking was only going to be infinitely harder with each unit of alcohol I drank, especially at the beginning - alcohol tends to tempt cigarette smoking out of even the dilettantes, I find), I've worked at the office every day this week (and done real work while there), I've stuck to my meal plan, I've hit my step goal every single day, and basically have just been really soberly On Top Of My Shit! with clappy hands emojis in between each word.

It is great to see that I can streak achieving all these goals for 3 days. Now - just to keep on keepin' on --

here is to happiness, and here is to health, hubski. cheers.

In theory, Scott could apply for banking jobs again. But his degree is almost eight years old and he has no relevant experience.

Scott, you're not a recruiter. Let the people hiring tell you why you can't get a job. Don't tell yourself why before you fill out a single application.

He sometimes considers getting a master’s, but that would mean walking away from his salary and benefits for two years and taking on another five digits of debt—just to snag an entry-level position, at the age of 30, that would pay less than he makes driving a bus.

Most people go for their master's, especially if it's an MBA, part-time. Even if most people didn't, Scott still could. And if his job offers salary and benefits, he should check out whether they offer tuition reimbursement, too.

Also, if you have a master's (presumably in business) and you snag an entry level position, you are doing it wrong.

But the real victims of this credential inflation are the two-thirds of millennials who didn’t go to college.

I really question this statistic. I found data that 4 in 10 millennials have a BA or more; i found that 34% of millennials have at least a BA.

I found no stats on millenials with no college. I was interested in %s of m. with no college vs m. with some college, as I am pretty sure they are not 66% and 0%. Like I suspect the stats are vastly different than that.

Unions, the great negotiators of wages and benefits and the guarantors of severance pay, became enemy combatants.

Learn your history. unions were always enemies to business-america. i mean, literally right from the start when people were dying in factories because they had been locked inside of them in unsafe conditions in like, the 1800s. Companies vs. unions have always been in opposition

Over the last 30 years, [trade unions have] successfully lobbied state governments to require occupational licenses for dozens of jobs that never used to need them. It makes sense: The harder it is to become a plumber, the fewer plumbers there will be and the more each of them can charge. Nearly a third of American workers now need some kind of state license to do their jobs,

wow. how unsafe that sounds. forcing workers to demonstrate they are properly educated and trained in order to execute their work. not letting just anyone off the street represent to the public they know how to do any trade job

btw, the author is citing this tidbit because he is trying to blame the fact that state gov'ts and trade groups are upping the standards for qualified workers for increased un/poor employment

he later calls these upped requirements "barriers to skilled occupations"

i didn't know that requiring a person to demonstrate they're skilled was an actual barrier to practicing a skilled occupation

In the 1970s, when the boomers were our age, young workers had a 24 percent chance of falling below the poverty line. By the 1990s, that had risen to 37 percent. And the numbers only seem to be getting worse. From 1979 to 2014, the poverty rate among young workers with only a high school diploma more than tripled, to 22 percent.

I really don't think this is a good paragraph. I just hate how we jump from one stat to another halfway through with no solid connection or explanation of what ties the two together. i feel this is either a poor argument or poorly written, but which one?

GABE'S STORY

Gabe was 19, not in college, and had a job. His sister got hurt. Apparently there are no taxis or ubers or buses in Gabe's town. Gabe took off work to drive her home without speaking to a manager. Gabe was in violation of his work's PTO policy. Gabe got fired.

Now Gabe has a job, lives in the same place, and still doesn't go to college. He still wants to get a degree guaranteed to keep him impoverished, but realized a trade job's more realistic. He's pursuing one.

“I don’t understand why it’s so hard to do something with your life,” he tells me.

THE TRAGIC END

______

Pause from the commentary:

There is enough that this article is validly putting a finger on - enough true points and concerning observations about How Society's Going These Days - that when it grasps and flails and wrings its hands in ways like I call out above, it makes the whole thing a shame.

A good story is so good it doesn't need to cut corners with the truth. The only way to ruin a perfect example is to fail to point out its lines clearly, cleanly, precisely to the audience.

Anyway, that's pedantics, and my personal opinion to boot.

Maybe the rest of this article gets better in quality (I'm continuing to read it and honestly finding less annoyances) - or maybe it gets waaay more general in its mounting stack of conclusions - I feel so/so on the whole thing, by now, but this shit appears long af -- but I guess I just don't know what I/we/society is/are supposed to do about it. You know, when we get up after reading this. I guess maybe ultimately the answer lies in voting? A lot of voting? But I don't know how I feel about how effective that system really is, in theory or in practice. I guess -

the article's tl,dr; society sucks and is vastly unjust especially if you're young

ok, so? but what's its point?

all i can think to do is try to do the best i can in life

unfair and sucky and shitty and povertous as apparently it's doomed to be for me and my cadre , all i can think to do about my reality within that is the best i can within it, right? maybe i can change it but i don't think i can escape it. millennials are doomed. so what, we're doomed.

-----

disclaimer: i am, by all standards set forth within this article, an extremely privileged millennial. I defy most of the statistics cited from start to finish, including that one about how, "young people were less likely to have lived at a different address a year earlier than at any time since 1963."

Does that make me part of the problem? Oh but it's so comfortable here.

I'm 27, and my life is not about giving other people what they want.

In other words, I dumped someone

I think I made some new friends! Like in the physical world! And I don't mean "bar strangers I talked to because we were all drunk who I'll never see or talk to again," I mean, two friends of a pre-existing friend with whom I got along famously all evening! Who live in my town and are in my age range and have professional jobs and could really become friends to me!

It's hard widening your social circle after college, guys, and what I've found is it mostly requires going to parties where you don't know anyone. Be brave, little rabbit.

Ben.

What a great question.

I love food. I don't know if/how much we've had this conversation, but I f'in loooooove food. Please. Let me talk about food. On a Friday night with a monster-vodka and a half-smoked pre-roll, please, pray tell, Sir Ben, allow me to really get a kick out of this discussion.

Yo, man, it is potato chips. That was one of the very first things I thought of when I considered your question, and the longer I thought about it the more I was like "Fuck yea fuckin potato chips for sure man, yeaaaaa!"

I. Love. Potato Chips.

I love cheddar & sour cream ripples (top tier). I love kettle-cooked jalapeno (top tier). I love barbecue and all stupid marketing ploys at different types of barbecue that come with it (silver medal). i love ripples with onion dip. (silver+ medal, dang, man) i love sour cream and onion (silver. too many? ok fine then bronze. but tied with salt and vinegar. i mean, damn, son!)

It's snowing here in DE and earlier my sister and I went to stock up on provisions. The last time I did that at the same Happy Harry's we went to in our little town was in 2015, before an epic snowstorm, which I spent locked in with my then-boyfriend and read all of The Gunslinger and lived off of 2 bags of 20 oz chips and a lot of cigarettes and alcohol for forty-odd hours. It wasn't great, but it was a good time, and in retrospect, a beautiful time of itself. So I was thinking about chips already when you asked this.

But damn! Ben, if it ain't right. I love lots of food; I love fried chicken and I love sushi and I love zuppa toscana (budget bytes recipe, google it, it's amazing), and i love cobb salads and i love hot chicken nuggets shaped like dinosaurs dipped in cold applesauce because it reminds me of childhood. and if i ever found a salad bar with these four ingredients, i'd make myself a plate and call it a salad: small diced ham, cold peas, shredded carrots, cheddar - bonus if you have french dressing - because when I was a kid Wendy's still had a salad bar and that's what my brother and I would get every time and that's the 'salad' I would eat every damn time. It would have to be at a Wendy's. And they don't ever have all 4 of those even at my work salad bar at the same time, and they stock that on the daily.

Yo, such is life, folks. Food is not only delicious but super evocative for me, one of my favorite topics of conversation. But god damn.

Mother fucking potato chips. Hands down, no denying, and I would be happy like, the whole entire time I was chowing down. I don't even want to know how much I could eat. Woooooof, thanks for asking :)